The United States has made public a trove of documents that intelligence officials say were taken by Navy SEALs during the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound that show the late terrorist’s interest in France, economics and conspiracy theories.

On Wednesday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence
released a list of English-language material
recovered during the infamous raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan in
2011, when Bin Laden was killed. The ODNI also made public
contents of more than 100 personal documents that were said to
have belonged to the Al-Qaeda leader, including letters to family
members and allies. Among items the intelligence community say
was inside the compound are at least 75 publicly available US
government reports discovered at Bin Laden’s home and digital
e-books, computer manuals, religious documents and think tank
studies.

“The focus should be on killing and fighting the American
people,” Bin Laden wrote to a colleague in one of the
letters published this week from the trove. In another, he wrote
his wife to say, “I will not find a woman like you, and I
will remain in the land of jihad until God will bring us together
in this world.”

A letter to one of Bin
Laden’s wives also includeshis will, where he advises her on the marriage
of his daughters and the future of his son.

"My will: If I get killed, and you want to return to your
family, then that is okay, but you have to raise my children
properly, and to watch them, and be careful of bad company for
them, especially after puberty, especially the girls," the
letter reads. "So be very careful about them and if you can
marry them to mujahidin, then that is best, or else to good
people. As for `Usama, when he reaches adulthood, if there is
someone else who cares for you, then send him to the battlefield
at his grandfather's. I specify his grandfather because his path
is clear and true without qualms on it, and because jihad is an
obligated duty for all adults, so he has to conduct jihad."

Among the books that intelligence officials say belonged to Bin
Laden are Obama's Wars, Pulitzer Prize-winner Bob Woodward’s
account of the current administration’s roles in overseas
conflicts, and two works by American academic Noam Chomsky. There
was also a copy of the US government’s report on the September
11, 2001 terrorist attacks attributed to Bin Laden and reports on
Iraq, Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda, among others. There were also
more than a dozen items related to France or the French economy,
including factsheets and a list of French shipping companies, and
books on the illuminati and 9/11 conspiracy theories, such as
Bloodlines of the Illuminati and The New Pearl
Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and
9/11.

“It is in the interest of the American public for citizens,
academics, journalists and historians to have the opportunity to
read and understand Bin Laden’s documents,” US House of
Representatives intelligence committee Chairman Devin Nunes
(R-California) said in a statement to The Guardian.

More to come

Jeff Anchukaitis, a spokesman for the DNI, explained that the
release constitutes “a sizeable tranche of documents
recovered during the raid” and was in keeping with President
Barack Obama’s call for “increased transparency,” according to
AFP.

“The Intelligence Community will be reviewing hundreds more
documents in the near future for possible declassification and
release,” the director’s office said in its Wednesday
statement. “An interagency taskforce under the auspices of
the White House and with the agreement of the DNI is reviewing
all documents which supported disseminated intelligence cables,
as well as other relevant material found around the
compound.”

According to the agency, all documents that can be published
without harming ongoing operations against Al-Qaeda or other
terror groups will be released pending further review.

“Given the large number of documents to review, and the
increasing public demand to review those documents, this winter
the White House asked CIA to declassify and the ODNI to release
documents as they were ready,” Anchukaitis said.

Wednesday’s dump comes after award winning journalist Seymour
Hersh published a lengthy essay calling into question the US
government’s official narrative concerning the Bin Laden raid.

In an interview with RT America earlier this month, Hersh took
aim at the White House’s claims that “treasure troves of
documents” had been taken from the compound.

“Where? Who? What? We haven’t seen much of that,” Hersh
said at the time.

According to CIA spokesman Ryan Trapani, however, the decision to
release the documents so soon after is purely coincidental, AFP
reported.